K-shaped Divergence: How to Break the Deadlock? | The 20th China Investment Annual Conference & Annual Summit is about to kick off.

Has the industry entered the "recovery cycle"?

The reason why this question is difficult to answer is that the perception of recovery has never been as uneven as it is today. Some are riding the waves at the forefront of the AI surge, while others are still struggling in the daily grind of "difficulty in getting funds, finding investment projects, and achieving exits." The data for 2025 does confirm an overall recovery: the number of investments has rebounded, and the scale of fundraising has increased. The popularity of artificial intelligence, commercial space, and embodied intelligence is clearly visible. However, those perennial "complaints" have not dissipated. They coexist with the shiny data, creating a fragmented picture.

This is the meaning of "K-shaped recovery": despite the overall improvement, the situations of different groups are accelerating their divergence - two curves accelerating in opposite directions, with an ever-deepening gap in between.

Compared with other recovery curves, the emergence of the K-shaped curve is more suitable to be understood as a "proposition" rather than a "conclusion." It reminds us that recovery is not universal, and the divergence is still intensifying. The complexities that have been put aside are far deeper than we imagined. Is the primary market experiencing a K-shaped recovery? What complexities have we actually overlooked in the process of promoting recovery? Where exactly does the root of the divergence lie?

From April 22nd to 24th, 2026, in Haidian, Beijing, the 20th China Investment Annual Conference · Annual Summit, hosted by ChinaVenture Group and ChinaVenture.com.cn, will officially kick off with these questions. We hope that in this annual gathering, we can dissect the underlying logic of the K-shaped divergence and probe into those truly important questions.

20-year witness: Where does the divergence come from?

Looking back at the 20th China Investment Annual Conference, the answer to a question gradually becomes clear: today's K-shaped divergence did not appear out of thin air. It is a natural result of the 20-year evolution of the industry.

In 2007, when the first China Investment Annual Conference was held, China's private equity investment industry was still in its pioneering stage. At that time, foreign institutions dominated the market, local LPs were not yet formed, and the exit channels were single. Venture capital was still a concept that needed repeated explanations. In the following 20 years, the industry has been galloping forward: the RMB funds have risen, the registration-based IPO reform has reshaped the exit logic, and a number of globally competitive enterprises have emerged in fields such as the Internet, mobile Internet, hard technology, biomedicine, and even artificial intelligence in recent years. As a result, China has become the world's second-largest equity investment market.

However, after the rapid development, divergence has followed. Those who once shared the dividends have started to go on completely different tracks - this is the background color of the "K-shaped curve." The institutions moving upward have often accumulated unique cognitive moats in the cycle, while those struggling downward may still not be able to shake off their dependence on the old dividends. Divergence is not an accident but an inevitable path for the industry to mature.

Over the past 20 years, ChinaVenture Group has accompanied China's equity investment industry all the way. From the early recording and sorting of the market, to gradually establishing industry evaluation standards through the "ChinaVenture Ranking," and then to converging industry consensus with the "China Investment Annual Conference" as a platform, we are both witnesses and participants. The theme of each annual conference is a response to the market focus at that time; every annual gathering is a pulse check of the industry. This year's "K-shaped curve" is not only a probe into the truth of recovery but also a naming of the result of the 20-year evolution.

To understand today's K-shaped divergence, we need to first see clearly the underlying forces that shape it.

Global perspective: Three variables behind the divergence

The formation of the K-shaped curve has never been caused by a single factor.

The first variable is the population. When the population structure undergoes a fundamental transformation, the underlying logics of consumption, employment, and industries are all being rewritten. The "demographic dividend" that once supported growth is giving way to new constraints.

The second variable is geopolitics. The flow direction and rhythm of global capital are more unpredictable than in the past decade. Competition and coordination coexist, and decoupling and reconstruction are intertwined. No participant in any market can stay out of it.

The third variable is technology. AI is penetrating all industries at an unprecedented speed, but the implementation of technology has never been linear. Some are riding the waves, while others are sighing in despair, and thus the divergence is intensifying.

This summit will start from these three variables and invite observers and thinkers from different fields to jointly dissect the deep logic behind the K-shaped divergence. How do international investment institutions view the current cycle? How do technology thinkers judge the evolution direction of AI? How do scholars who have long studied global governance interpret the world trend under the changing situation? These questions will be explored one by one during the summit.

The domestic perspective is also indispensable. Experts and scholars will start from the population structure to interpret the long-term driving forces of the K-shaped divergence. Dozens of managers of front-line investment institutions will also share their observations and responses in the face of divergence in different sessions.

Investment front line: When divergence becomes the norm, how to reshape the methodology

When the K-shaped divergence changes from a phenomenon to the norm, the survival rules of investment institutions are also being redefined.

In the past year, every link, from fundraising to exit, from track selection to post-investment empowerment, has been undergoing reconstruction. Without exception, those institutions that have weathered the cycle are all doing the same thing: re-examining their own methodologies. How to find certainty in uncertainty? How to anchor one's own position in the divergence?

During the summit, several important sessions will focus on these topics.

#Ten-Day Talk# is a reserved session of the annual conference every year. This year, with which top institutional bigwig who is most representative of 2025 will Yang Xiaolei, the CEO of ChinaVenture Group, have an in-depth dialogue to present the thinking trajectory of industry leaders? It is really worth looking forward to!

#Peak Dialogue# has always been a place with the most intense collision of views. This year's topic setting directly points to the current pain points: What exactly are the underlying forces driving the K-shaped divergence? Can the exit logic of the primary market be deduced from the structural slow bull in the secondary market? When the demands of LPs are becoming more and more diverse, how can GPs find the "greatest common divisor"?

Mergers and acquisitions are becoming an important tool to weather the cycle. A group of institutions that have been deeply involved in the M&A field for many years will discuss the "new M&A ecosystem" - when the market enters the stage of stock integration, can M&A really become the "upward path"?

In addition, #NOVA FORUM# will continue to focus on the subjectivity and intergenerational inheritance of the new generation of investors. Under the themes of "New order, new mind," "Beyond the K curve," and "When investors are redefined," young investors will share how they reshape the investment logic in the era of divergence and find their own home courts.

As an important prelude to the annual conference, the in-depth video interview program "Super Investors" carefully created by ChinaVenture Group will also be launched again before this summit. In 2026, the program will focus on the top forces in China's venture capital field - the "Best Return Investors." The camera will be pointed at those industry leaders who have created huge returns of over $1 billion from a single project exit. Through in-depth dialogues, we will explore their unique insights in capturing super unicorns and review the decision-making logic and critical moments behind hundreds or even thousands of times of returns. These thoughts from the front-line "top" will echo the offline summit and jointly present the deep logic of investment decisions in the K-shaped era.

Industrial China: Where does the upward curve come from?

The "upward branch" of the K-shaped curve is largely driven by technological innovation.

Artificial intelligence, robotics, high-end manufacturing, and innovative drugs - these tracks are reshaping the industrial ecosystem and have become the main battleground for capital competition. On April 23rd, the whole day, the summit will focus on the "Industrial China Chapter," trying to penetrate the concepts and directly address the real challenges and opportunities in industrial implementation.

In the "AI + All Industries Special Session," the topics extend from "being able to have a conversation" to "being able to do things," exploring the real path for AI to reshape industries. The "Robotics Special Session" focuses on technological breakthroughs, data bottlenecks, and scenario implementation, asking how far this industry is from its previous imagination. The "High-End Manufacturing Special Session" looks overseas, discussing how Chinese manufacturing can break through in the global market. The "Innovative Drugs Special Session" directly faces the unresolved problem: how can GPs deeply empower Biotech companies and accompany them through the "valley of death."

Every dialogue is trying to answer the same question: Where exactly does the upward curve come from?

ChinaVenture Ranking 2025: Witnessing the investment power in the K-shaped era

As the vane of China's private equity market, the "ChinaVenture Ranking · 2025 Annual List" will be grandly released during this summit. This list is not only a summary of the industry trends in the past year but also a witness to the investment power in the era of K-shaped divergence. Relying on ChinaVenture CVSource and the feedback questionnaires of more than a thousand active investment institutions in the private equity field, through standardized processing of the questionnaire data, the final ranking is determined according to the overall score, detailing the dynamic changes in China's private equity market in the past year. From the "Top 100 Best Venture Capital Institutions" to the "Top 100 Best Private Equity Investment Institutions," from the "Top 50 Best Early-Stage Investment Institutions" to the 4th "Nova Rising Star Investor List," the "ChinaVenture Ranking" will use data and cases to outline the institutions and individuals that still adhere to value and weather the cycle in the wave of divergence.

Meanwhile, on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the "China Investment Annual Conference," the list specially adds the "List of Influential Figures in China's Venture Capital in 20 Years" to pay tribute to those leaders who have shaped the industry landscape in the past 20 years.

The 20th session is a node and, more importantly, a starting point.

In the past 20 years, China's equity investment industry has gone from the pioneering stage to the boom and then to divergence. Looking back at this node, we have reason to be satisfied with the path we have traveled; however, the emergence of the K-shaped curve also reminds us that the road ahead is not smooth, the divergence is still intensifying, and the complexities are far from being resolved.

But precisely because of this, we need to sit down and have serious conversations, in-depth collisions, and rational speculations - to find consensus in the divergence and reshape the future in the face of differentiation.

From April 22nd to 24th, 2026, in Haidian, Beijing, the 20th China Investment Annual Conference · Annual Summit looks forward to discussing with you the ways to break the situation in the era of the "K-shaped curve."